It was Janey who played for the funeral when they sent Junior Foreman’s body home from that place in Asia. It was a sad time for Ralph and Helen, with the Army saying they couldn’t open the box to look at him. I think it was a real comfort to them to have her there for at one time they’d had hopes Junior and Janey might be planning a future together.
It was Janey who played, too, when Lucy Renkert’s Katie got in trouble with the boy from the telephone company and we had to have a hurry-up wedding. Katie was white-faced and so was the boy, probably because the Reverend was glaring at them like he expected the pit of Hell to open up at their feet The way he carried on you’d think a seven-month pregnancy could never happen in a God-fearing community.
Janey didn’t pay any mind to her Pa’s thunder, and after the knot was tied she invited Katie and her husband and all their folks over to the parsonage for cake and punch. Before long Janey had Katie smiling and happy as if she’d planned things this way all along.
Nate’s stomach upset didn’t improve, and he finally had to dig up some of his money to go see a doctor over at the county seat. Some of those faces on the bills must have blinked to see the light of day. Janey borrowed a car—Nate had never seen the reason for that kind of extravagance—and she took him over.
When they came back late in the afternoon, I was fixing my porch steps and I saw her carry a big box of candy into the parsonage. It was a pink, frilly box, not the sort of thing a girl would buy for herself or even for her father.
I tell you, a God-awful chill went through me—and through the whole of Cedar Grove when I told them about it Never in his life had Nate laid out a penny for a gift. Bribes, yes, when he was sure there was no other way to get what he wanted.
First thing the next morning some of us started finding excuses to drop by and see the Reverend. I talked to him myself. But none of us did any good. In spite of the fact that he was a man of God, he had always paid more mind to Nate’s money than to his character.
“I’d be proud to have Mr. Steinhelfer for a son-in-law,” he says. “Janey is a flighty girl and she needs someone older to settle her down.”
Janey Harmon was about as flighty as the maple tree that stood by the door of the parsonage, but try telling that to a man who can’t see past the edge of his plate.
Helen Foreman said she told him how Nate treated his first three wives and all she got was a sermon about bearing false witness. Even Lucy Renkert put in her two cents, or tried to. She came out of the parsonage like her skirt was on fire and I don’t like to think what the Reverend said to her. Thank the Lord, Hattie never heard what was in the wind or we’d have had a spitting wildcat on our hands. She still thought of Janey as her baby, and I think she’d have killed Nate before she let him slip a ring on Janey’s finger.
Even talking to Janey didn’t cut much ice. She wouldn’t admit that Nate had spoken for her—but she wouldn’t exactly promise to turn him down, either. We were all just sick, thinking she was going to let her Pa push her into this thing.
It was in the middle of all this that Michael Todd came to Cedar Grove.
I first saw him when Ralph and Helen brought him to church that Sunday morning. Ralph said he’d showed up at the farm, day before. He’d been a friend of Junior’s in that place in Asia, and he’d come to talk to them about their boy and how he died. Helen—well, Helen never had been sure it was Junior in that box. I can’t say she was happy to know the truth, but the way she looked that morning, knowing must have been a lot better than wondering.
The boy had been hurt in the same trouble that killed Junior. Hurt bad. He was missing an arm and a leg and there was something funny about his eyes. He told us he could just stay a short while before going back to the hospital.
Michael was from some place east, but in five days he settled into the Grove like he’d been born there. It was Janey was responsible for that. Those two took one look at each other and Nate might as well have asked Janey to give back his box of candy. Knowing Nate, he probably did.
That Michael, he was a good boy. He traded stories with the grandpas sitting in the shade and asked after the farmers* crops. For all that he had only one leg and one hand he helped where he could and wouldn’t take any thanks for it. Of course, he wasn’t from the Grove and any other time we might have held that against him because anyone could see he was going to take our Janey away. But losing her to a stranger was better than seeing her marry Nate.
Naturally, Nate didn’t take it too good. He started carrying on about his stomach again, I guess hoping Janey would feel sorry for him. But Janey took Michael along when she went to call on Nate and that put an end to that. Nate gave up his sickbed and started creeping around the Grove like he was spying on Michael and Janey. I would no more have tangled with him then than I would have with a rabid skunk.
The Reverend didn’t take it too good either. He kept mouthing charitable words about “that cripple” but he looked like he’d just bit into a lemon when he’d had his mouth set for chocolate cake.
Anyone could see how the two of them felt about each other. Every time I looked at them I started thinking about things that had been buried long ago. It was sweet and hurtful all at once. We were going to lose Janey—but Janey, she looked like she thought she was getting the whole world.
It seemed like everyone in the Grove knew about their plans as soon as they did. Michael was going back to the hospital and when he was well again he was coming back here to marry Janey in her Pa’s church. I guess Janey would have gone with him right off, but the Reverend was kicking up a fuss about her leaving him so sudden.
The night before Michael was to leave we had a supper at the church. I don’t know who invited Hattie. I’d just as soon have left her out of it. She was getting as strange as a barn owl and ten times as noisy. She didn’t take to Michael at all.
All the women brought covered dishes. Even Michael brought something he’d whipped up at Helen’s place. Called it Kim Chee or something like that. I had a taste of it and it was sort of like ripe cole slaw all mixed up with garlic and hot peppers. Damn near curled my hair. Almost everyone had a taste, but Michael was the only one could eat the stuff. Guess he got the taste for it over in Asia.
Maybe it was the Kim Chee—but I didn’t like the way old Hattie was chuckling when Michael started getting those cramps. Janey and Helen took him over to the parsonage to lie down and I grabbed Hattie and hustled her outside.
“What did you put in that cabbage stuff?” I asked.
She cackled again. “Why, it wasn’t much,” she says, all innocent. “Just one of my little potions. I got to help Janey.”
“What are you trying to do, kill him?”
“Poor boy has enough troubles,” she says. “No, I just fixed It so he’ll forget about Janey as soon as he leaves the Grove.”
Well, what can you do with a crazy old woman like that? It was all right when she was just collecting her weeds and dirt and talking wild, but when she starts poisoning people then it’s time to put her some place safe.
Michael must have recovered all right because Helen said he left the next morning. Ralph had offered to drive him, seeing as how he was almost family, but Michael didn’t like to put people out, no more than Janey did, and he said he was meeting someone who was going that way.
I didn’t have much time to think about Michael that day, nor Janey either. I had my hands full just taking care of Hattie. I practically had to drag her out of that weed-smelly trailer she called home and she screeched at me every mile to the old folks’ home.
As I was driving over the bridge at Shott’s Creek, I saw Nate walking by the side of the road. I sort of wished I could throw him in the car and take him to the home, too. Get rid of all our problems at once. But it never would have worked. The people at the home wouldn’t have kept him. If you have enough money, you don’t have to have all your marbles.
Things settled down for a while after that. The Reverend still preached his sermons and if �
��honor thy father and thy mother” came up a little more often than usual, none of us remarked on it. I guess you don’t notice the roof till the tornado tugs at the shingles, and the Reverend was starting to notice how much Janey had to do with taking care of the church and the parsonage and keeping food on his table.
The women and girls were getting excited, the way they do before a wedding, giving showers, helping Janey with her wedding dress, deciding who was going to bake the cake. There was one who wasn’t too pleased. Laura Bennett had been planning her own wedding to one of the Foreman boys, and in all the fuss over Janey, Laura’s plans took second place.
But Laura hadn’t lost her teeth. From time to time I heard her comment how glad she was her husband-to-be had all his limbs.
Janey didn’t seem to hear that In fact after the first week Michael was gone, Janey didn’t seem to hear much of anything. On the outside she was the same as always. But there was something missing. At first I put it down to love for the boy. But love doesn’t take away, it adds. Then the whispers started. That would have been about three months after Michael left the Grove.
I knew Laura had something to do with them so I didn’t pay any mind. But a few weeks later, anyone with half an eye could see Janey had good reason to wish for Michael to hurry back.
The Reverend began to thunder. It got worse when Janey broke down and admitted she hadn’t heard from Michael since he left “The boy is never coming back, never meant to come back,” the Reverend said, and we began to wonder if he was right. I told everyone it was the war upsetting Michael’s mind and we should give him a little more time, but even I knew something was awful wrong.
The Reverend was getting thick with Nate again and then there was just no stopping it. They set a date and announced it in church. Janey didn’t seem to care. It was like she’d already started to die a little inside, the way Martha and the others had. That smile of hers was just a memory.
It was that nightmare all over again. As the wedding date got closer I felt like I was in a box. Sweet Janey, our special girl, was being sold for a hand-me-down wedding ring. I guess I went off my rocker a bit because the morning of the wedding I drove over to the old folks’ home and did something I hope people in the Grove never find out about When old Hattie heard about Nate she was glad to bum some weeds and chant some words she said would remove her spell, but I felt like a damn fool.
I didn’t have too much time to worry about it though because when I got back, people were already heading for the church. Ralph and a bunch of the other men were standing by the door, looking solemn and talking among themselves, so I went over to see what was up.
“Found him in Shott’s Creek a couple hours ago,” Ralph said. “Must have been Nate who did it He’s crazy enough.”
“Now, you don’t know that for sure,” someone else said. “Sheriff said it looked to him like an accident. We know the boy was sick.”
“Well, why doesn’t someone stop the wedding till we find out?” I wanted to know.
But they’d talked to the Reverend and he couldn’t be moved. Nothing was going to keep him from becoming the father-in-law of the richest man in the county.
No one had the heart to tell Janey. One way or another the boy was gone and how was that going to help her now? I guess we were all hoping she would never have to find out about it.
The bell began to ring and we filed inside. From our faces you might have thought it was more likely a funeral than a wedding. And I guess it was.
Janey and Nate were at the altar and the Reverend had turned away for a moment when we heard the noise from outside the door, coming up the walk, slow and painful, the way it always was for him. Nobody moved or spoke at first. Then the Reverend began to quiver, and Nate, he kind of hunched his shoulders like someone was about to hit him. We looked at them so we wouldn’t have to turn around.
But Janey tinned. She was smiling in a way that made her face glow, like there was a halo around it. She waited for him to open the door.
I can still remember that smile. I always did say it was worth waiting for.
Introduction
Pure Malzberg/Pronzini—to say any more would have this introduction run longer than the story.
OPENING A VEIN
by Bill Pronzini/Barry N. Malzberg
The last man on Earth was a vampire.
So he rummaged around in the ruins until he came upon a copy of The Rites of Goetic Theurgy, and then he conjured up the Devil.
“Listen,” the vampire said, wrinkling his nose at the smell of sulphur and brimstone that surrounded Lucifer, “I summoned you here because I’m the last living thing on Earth, as if you didn’t know, and I want to make a deal for some blood.”
The Devil laughed mockingly. “A deal?” he said. “Vampires have no souls, so what could you possibly bargain with?”
“We could work out something—”
“Even if you had a soul,” the Devil said fetchingly, “I wouldn’t bargain with the likes of you. Now that the Final War has wiped the globe clean, I have all the souls I need to last me through Eternity.”
“But you’ve got to help me,” the vampire pleaded. “I’m starving here all alone!”
“That’s your problem,” the Devil said and prepared to depart, then hesitated. “The trouble is that I’m a sentimental fool,” he said. “It must be my origins.” He lifted his head proudly, considering the abysmal landscape. “One taste,” he said. “That’s all.”
“Of you?”
“As you pointed out,” the Devil said, “your choice is limited.”
The vampire sighed. Not unsophisticated in the ways of temptation he suspected the Devil’s ploy was to allow him only enough blood to exacerbate desire, sentencing him to an eternity of even greater torment. On the other hand, his desires were immediate and it was perhaps unwise to take the long view. Considering all of this, the vampire leapt upon the Devil (who received him willingly) and drained a considerable amount of blood from the old tempter, finding it to his surprise to be quite fresh and of no noxiousness whatsoever.
The Devil made no effort to fend him off and the vampire was able to feast, if that is the word, at leisure. At length, sated, he withdrew to find that the Devil was a thin and shriveled figure upon the ground, utterly drained of life or fluids.
I’ve killed the Devil, the vampire thought. It was a pity, under all the circumstances, that there were no witnesses. In simpler times, he thought, he would at least have gotten a medal.
In the abysmal chaos however there were neither medallions or presenters. There was merely the large meal lingering within him and a vague feeling of regret which the vampire, soon enough, interpreted as boredom. There was not even the hope of further meals, now, and an intolerable eternity of solitude.
Thinking this and other despairing thoughts he looked out upon the formless void. Perhaps there was something he could do about that anyway, he thought.
Energized by the blood of the practical Devil he set about doing it.
He waited a while before creating the swimming and crawling things. No sense in haste. Time and his powers made him easeful.
In due course, the game would come.
Introduction
When asked if there was another Nolan piece available for this volume, William F. wrote back to say that he had, literally, seventeen other projects to work on and had no time for short fiction. Three days later, “The Partnership” came in the mail; Bill was at an all-night eatery when the idea struck, he wrote it longhand on the counter, and spent the rest of the night typing the final draft. It occurs to him, he says, that it’s about time he got back into the field full-strength. It is about time.
It’s also about substance that somehow has more impact when the town is small and the world threatens to pass it by.
THE PARTNERSHIP
by William F. Nolan
Me and Ed, we’re in business together. Which is what I want to tell you about eventually because I think you folks will f
ind it interesting. But this is also about the stranger with the beard. And he comes first.
You like ghost stories? Bet you do! Everybody does. But this isn’t one of those. Not a ghost in it. Still, it’s a little spooky, I’d guess. I mean, to some it will be. Strange—that’s a good word for it.
Strange.
Anyhow, Ed and me, we got ourselves a real nice partnership going. For one thing, we trust each other, and that’s the basis you build on. No trust, no partnership. Learned that long ago. My Irish grandaddy, bless him, came over from County Cork. Bought into a saloon in Kansas City with a partner who “stole him blind.” That’s how he always put it: “That man stole me blind!”
Now, with Gramps long gone in Missouri earth, I’m as old as he was when I was a tad. That’s how I got my first name. Ralph’s the legal one, but I’ve always been Tad since Gramps called me that. Tad Miller. Simple name for a simple man.
I grew up in St. Louis and we moved to Chicago when I was still a boy—but you don’t really want to know all about how I got here to this little town stuck down in god-knows-where country. It’s in Illinois, a good piece out from Chicago, and we’re on the lake. That’s what counts—not how I got here or what brought me.
I’m here. That’s enough.
Name of this town’s not important, so I won’t give it out. If I did, some of you folks might come here one day, looking to say hello, and I wouldn’t like that much since I’m not partial to meeting just anybody. No offense.
Ed’s the same way. When he’s ready to meet a stranger he’ll go all out, but in between he’s like me. Keeps to home.
Don’t get me wrong. When a stranger comes to town, and I see he’s lonely, I’ll strike up a conversation as quick as the next fellow. I just don’t advertise, if you know what I mean.
This town’s on a spur highway into Chicago, and we get our share of hitchers. Road bums, sometimes. Others—like kids on the run from home, heading for life in the big city. Some on vacation. All kinds, drifting in for coffee and grub at Sally Anne’s. They all end up at Sal’s. Only eatery left in town, so she gets the business.
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